Bold and Modern Plumbing
by MrsTater
Summary: When Richard shows Mary one of the newly renovated en suite bathrooms at Haxby, they both gain a new appreciation for the life they will have together.


**Bold and Modern Plumbing**

"So this is the _en suite _bathroom," Mary says, her heels clicking on the grey and black and white marble floor just inside the door when her fiancé sweeps it open wide for her.

"One of many," Richard replies, his deep but focused voice echoing in the vast space which had, before the Haxby renovations began, been an entire bedroom. Not a surface remains un-tiled except for the vaulted ceiling a few panelled walls which are plastered not for the sake of improving the acoustics, but purely for the aesthetics of featuring elaborate painted murals. "Though I suppose it's _the _bathroom, by virtue of being the master. It's certainly the grandest in the house."

Mary is relieved to hear it, as she slowly turns her head, eyeing every fixture and finish from beneath an arched eyebrow-though she boggles to conceive of any bathroom surpassing the opulence of _this _one.

"It complements the balustrade of the staircase," she says.

Richard smiles. "That was rather the aim of the design scheme-to build on what you deemed the best feature of your future home."

A black marble sink with an angular, masculine profile-much like her intended's-stands at attention in the centre of the far wall, perpendicular to its scarcely daintier counterpart, a white-topped vanity table; the polished gilt taps of each glare beneath the glow of electric pendant lamps-miniature versions of the chandelier that dangles from the peak of the ceiling-reflecting off mirrors framed by green and blue tiles polished to a jewelled sheen, grouted in gilt. Neither sink is half so imposing as the black marble bathtub that presides from the wall opposite Mary on a raised platform framed by iridescent blue-green taffeta draperies, that could as well be a dais in a throne room, crowned by a golden showerhead.

The murals _are _rather lovely, she must grant, despite her teeth having set on edge at Richard's initial announcement that he'd commissioned an artist to paint them. An aquatic motif, water lilies and vines entwined with the curling tails of snakes and fishes' fins, all done in jewelled blues and greens and creamy golden hues, effectively softens the abundance of dark heavy marble. There's a green upholstered chaise lounge, too, which is in quite good taste, though she can't imagine what purpose it might serve in a room designated for the performing of one's ablutions.

No sooner has she thought it than Richard drapes himself comfortably along the chaise and slips his silver cigar case out of his jacket pocket. When he has lit it and taken a drag, he gestures lackadaisically with a long-fingered hand through a wreathe of smoke to a narrow door in the corner of the room. "Through there's the water closet."

"Presumably containing a black marble toilet to round out the set?"

Richard's smirking lips release a puff of cigar smoke. "I'd tell you to take a look for yourself, but _I _presume that's rather a lot to expect from an earl's daughter. I'll just sit here and relish the notion of you having deigned to discuss plumbing."

"A cigar-worthy event, indeed."

"Shall I light one for you, too?"

Mary rolls her eyes. "Don't get too comfortable, Richard darling. I won't have my bathroom reeking of cigars. No matter how relaxing you may find it to enjoy a hot soak and smoke at the end of a long day of _work_."

"The bath's for you, my dear," he replies, ignoring her jibe at his earning a living. "I'm a shower man, and I'm sure you can imagine how poorly that activity pairs with a cigar." His eyes glimmer as he draws again from it. "Though that was rather the point of this chaise lounge-to have a place to enjoy a cigar while watching _you_ have a hot soak at the end of the day."

"What I _can't _imagine," Mary says, her skirt brushing the edge of the chaise as she steps around it for closer inspection of the shower-and to hide her blush at his mention of watching her bathe"is how standing up under a hard spray of water could be more relaxing than stretching out in a bath."

"The mere thought of it is enough to make the tension ebb from my shoulders."

Richard's roughened fingertips close around her hers dangling at her side, and she allows him to tug her down to sit on the empty space beside him on the edge of the chaise. He slides his hand up over her wrist and arm to settle at the base of her neck, gently massaging the taut muscles.

"You could do with a little release of tension yourself, Mary," he murmurs, pushing himself upright to nuzzle her cheek. For all her complaints about smoking in the bathroom, she inhales the thick vanilla scent of his cigar as she leans into his touches. "Why don't you give it a try?"

"I'm sure I shall, eventually." She maintains her composure even as she tilts her head at the gentle coaxing of his fingers on her neck to accommodate the kisses he trails along the line of her jaw. "It does seem convenient for washing one's hair."

"You know me...convenience is next to godliness."

"Not above it?"

"_Mmm..._You're right. Along with a number of other traits." And, in a most ungodly manner, his fingers creep up into her coif and slide out a pin that sends a long tendril tumbling down Mary's back. "Including not procrastinating."

Their noses bump as Mary turns her head, his removal of another pin releasing more of her hair. "Why put off till tomorrow the shower you can take today?"

"One of my personal favourite maxims." Richard captures her lips with his, placing his cigar in an ashtray atop a table next to the chaise, freeing both his hands to let her hair down.

Her fingers dallying with the knot of his necktie, Mary pulls out of the kiss just enough to murmur against his mouth, "Does that mean you'll be joining me?"

"Absolutely," says Richard between kisses; he abandons her hair to unbutton her blouse, "since my stay at Downton has been a return to the hygiene of the Dark Ages."

"We do have running water."

"Barely. And no showers at all."

"All the more reason to shower with me," Mary replies as she pulls her arms out of the sleeves of her blouse. "I need to be shown how it's done."

"Appalling, that a twenty-seven year-old woman's never taken a shower."

"Why would I, when I have maids to draw baths for me?"

"That's exactly the attitude that's led to the crumbling of the aristocracy."

Richard gets up from the chaise and sheds his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt before stepping up onto the marble titled platform and turning the wall taps, a steaming spray immediately streaming from the showerhead.

"And my taking a shower is the final irreparable fissure, is that it?" Mary arches an eyebrow at him as she stands, holding her unfastened skirt around her waist. "Perhaps I ought to reconsider."

"It's far too late for that, I'm afraid," Richard says, striding back to her and pushing the garment down over her hips.

As the skirt puddles around her feet, he takes her hands and helps her step out of it, then turns her around to loosen the laces of her corset. Her hair hangs in the way, so he pushes it over her shoulder, leaning in to trail hot kisses over her bared neck and shoulder blades. The action steals Mary's breath, as well as any thought she had of returning the banter, and she turns in his arms, tilting her face up to kiss him once again as he slides his fingers beneath the front seams of her corset to release the eyelet closures. Feeling the hard press of him against her, she unbuttons his trousers, keeping her hand curled against his arousal for longer than is strictly necessary after she has unfastened them.

With a groan, Richard releases her lips and sits on the chaise so he can pull off his shoes and socks. Mary joins him, hitching up her petticoat above her knees to untie her garters, but Richard catches her hands and stops her, then slides off the chaise to crouch on the floor in front of her to perform the duty himself. His eyes darken as his fingers slip underneath the tops of her stockings, leaning in to place kisses to the insides of her thighs and knees as he peels them down, bit by bit, agonisingly slowly, to bare her legs.

Mary bites down on her lower lip, stifling a moan, at the touch of his lips and hot breath on this seldom seen, and even less frequently touched skin, but when he moves to unbuckle her shoes, she finds her composure once again.

"Not the _total _downfall of the aristocracy," she says, "with you performing the duties of a lady's maid."

Richard quirks an eyebrow as he slides his hands back up her legs and beneath her petticoat until he finds the waistband of her knickers, nudging her to lift her bottom off the chaise so he can remove her underwear. "Have many ladies' maids undressed you like this? And I might also remind you, _Lady Mary, _that you've assisted _me_ in the manner typically reserved for valets."

"Perhaps we oughtn't bother employing either, then," Mary says as they stand and Richard divests her of her chemise, "as we're so adept at filling the posts ourselves."

For a moment he is too distracted with cupping her small breasts in his hands, teasing her nipples to pert points with his thumbs, but when he tugs off her petticoat, he says, "I didn't work my way from the very bottom of society not to employ a valet if I can afford one." He sucks in his breath sharply as Mary pulls down his undershorts, her hand again making a bold move across his arousal. "Exquisite though it is to be undressed by you."

"Which is why the aristocracy will never vanish entirely, so long as people still aspire to be us."

"Albeit with better hygiene."

"Hygiene?" In the brief span of time in which Richard's face is obscured by the cotton vest as he peels it over his head, Mary rakes her eyes over his torso, lean and muscular as a sportsman's, sprinkled with fine light brown hair that takes on an almost golden sheen under the electric lights. "Is _that_ what this is about?"

He smirks as his undershirt joins the pile of discarded clothes at their feet. "Only in the most euphemistic sense." He makes her a slight bow from the waist-a gallant gesture so incongruous with his nude state as to be ridiculous-indicating the shower with an elegant sweep of his work-roughened hand. "After you, my lady?"

Not very _far_ after; as she turns Richard's fingertips skim over her hip to rest in the curve of her back, then brush down rounded curve of her bottom when she steps up onto the platform. His strong hand supports her elbow as she clambers rather inelegantly over the high edge of the bathtub, preventing her from slipping on the slick porcelain bottom when she startles at the near-scalding temperature of the water that washes over the tops of her feet. Mary squints as she ducks beneath the hot fall of water from the showerhead, letting it rain down on her head for a moment before she turns to let it flow down her back, the beat and the heat of the water proving every bit as relaxing to muscles most frequently held rigid by her corset and the restraint necessitated by her station and her sex. Only when she sighs, allowing her shoulders to sag, pulled downward by hands that hang as limp at her sides as if the fingers are made of lead, does Richard move to join her under the shower.

She feels his fingers rake through her heavy sodden hair, pushing it back out of her face as she peers up at him. Her mouth opens to ask whether he's going to say _I told you so, _but she swallows the words as she meets eyes as dark as the marble wall behind her with want, her lips touched by a pair that speak wordlessly of an even sweeter emotion. Mary answers, her tongue meeting his at it sweeps into her mouth, and takes a step backward as his callused fingers grip her hips, at once drawing her body flush against his so that his wet, wiry chest hair bristles over the tender skin of her nipples, and pressing her backward against the wall.

Though she instinctively tenses in anticipation of ice cold marble at her back, the water and-no doubt the central heating, have warmed the stone so that she relaxes again at once, returning Richard's kiss with so much fervour that he draws back, looking down at her, askance.

"What brought that on?"

"Extreme gratitude that once we're married, I'll never have to shiver after a bath for the rest of my life."

"You've no idea how happy it makes me to know I hold the power to make your wildest dreams come true."

"Or the pocketbook."

Mary lets out a little shriek of laughter as Richard's thumb and forefinger pinch her on the bottom. She continues to giggle as she trails apologetic kisses across his collarbones and up the side of his neck, lingering in the place where she feels his pulse beat. But Richard seems unconcerned with apologies as he draws one of her legs up along the outside of his hip. He presses against her, but does not proceed.

"Look at me, Mary." His voice rumbles in his chest against her breasts as the hot water drums down on them.

Pressing one last kiss to his neck, she leans back against the shower wall, looking into his eyes as she traces the trail of a droplet over his cheekbone with her thumb, overcoming the urge to blink as he presses into him so that she is with him, fully, _completely_, at the moment of their joining.

"My God," Richard mutters, pressing his cheek against hers as he begins to move, as if it is too much.

Mary feels it, too, but holds her own gaze in the vanity mirror across the bathroom, their pale entwined bodies just visible through the thick steam against the black wall. There is a white flash as her fingers splay across his shoulders, then curl into a claw in the valley of his spine in response to the rock of his hips, her engagement ring catching the light. Her red lips part in a wide o as she scrabbles in vain to hold on even as she feels Richard begin to shudder and crumble within and without her, and they are both of them fluid, and one.

Afterward, as Richard wraps a fluffy white towel around her shoulders, she says, "I think it's safe to say you've convinced me of the pleasure of a shower. In both the literal and the euphemistic sense."

He dimples as he towels off his hair. "I suppose the gentlemanly thing to say would be that I've never enjoyed a shower quite so much as that one."

"Perhaps you oughtn't have bothered to have the bath installed at all."

Securing the towel around his waist, Richard steps out of the tub and resumes his position stretched out on the chaise lounge and reaches for his cigar. "Oh, who knows. You may make a bath man of me yet."

Grinning, Mary lets her towel flutter to the floor beside the tub and bends to turn the tap. "I think I may have a few ideas for how to do that-but don't you dare light that cigar."


End file.
